"That goes just as much for you," John told Cayce. He was thinking similarly to Cayce; it was too bad she and Aeryn hadn't gotten the chance to know each other better. Aeryn had lost just as many as he had, more really when he remembered to allow for all that time spent on Talyn with another him and her mother chasing her. She deserved those friendships she could find so much more than he did.

All the same, there was a wonderous kind of unspoken affection there, and John yet again found himself thinking that it was only ever about people, no matter how vast and spectacular the Universe was. Any of them were.

So maybe, despite all the heartache, he was the luckiest man he knew.